


So tough eh? You're so tough.

by YourFadedGlory (HisNameWasAce)



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, M/M, References to Illness, references to injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2014-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-23 22:37:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2558228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HisNameWasAce/pseuds/YourFadedGlory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are moments that make his heart stop, moments that punch the air out of his lungs and leave him feeling helplessly hollow.</p>
<p>(Or the six people Sidney almost loses.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	So tough eh? You're so tough.

**Author's Note:**

> _“Almost lost you," he thought, surprised to find himself blinking back tears. "Been through too much, me and you. We're going to finish this thing together.”_ ― Brom, The Child Thief
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> **For M. Every butterfly I see will always be for you.**

There are moments that make his heart stop, moments that punch the air out of his lungs and leave him feeling helplessly hollow.

Taylor was four, wobbling around the backyard rink on some worn down skates. He was supposed to be watching her, he’d _promised_ to watch her. All he wanted to do was try a quick trick shot, take out the empty water bottle he’d balanced on top of the net. It would take a few seconds, not even a minute.

As he lined up the shot he heard her little feet scrambling behind him, like the dull blades were struggling to find purchase. There must have been a crunch when her face met the ice, but the smack of the puck meeting the bottle dulled it. Her cries however, high pitched shrieks of pain, cut through him like a white hot knife.

He’d whipped around, horrified at the sight of his baby sister on all fours, blood pouring from her nose and pooling in a thick puddle beneath her pale purple gloves. For a moment he swore his world stopped spinning, seeing tears stream down her cold reddened cheeks and run a rusty red color before dripping off her chin.

It was his fault, he should have never looked away.

Even now, whenever he saw that pale scar running along the bridge of her nose, he couldn’t forget the terror held felt as he scooped her up and ran inside screaming for their mom. It still made a shiver run down his back, and he had to fight the impulse to cross himself.

**\-----**

It was his nineteenth birthday, Mario shook him awake at three in the morning, looking unusually harried.

“Sidney, _Sidney_ wake up.”

The note of panic in his voice roused him, brought him around to full and complete consciousness in a matter of moments. Mario wasn’t the type of man that panicked, not when Austin broke his arm after falling out of a tree, or when Alexa nearly set the stove on fire while making cupcakes.

“Whassit, who’s hurt?” Were first the words to tumble from his mouth, because someone had to be hurt, the house had to be burning, or the zombie apocalypse commencing.

“Malkin, Evgeni Malkin has he contacted you?” There was an air of desperation to the question, and it made Sid’s skin crawl with uncertainty.

Malkin? Malkin hasn’t texted him in at least a week, their last stilted conversation having devolved into an odd exchange of excited emojis. But just to make sure, he reached for his bedside table, fumbling around to unplug his phone. There were a handful of texts from Jack and his family wishing him a happy birthday, but not a single one from Malkin.

“What’s wrong, did something happen?”

Mario bit his lip, eyes bright with concern. “His team lost him in Finland.”

_Lost him?_

**_LOST HIM?_ **

“How the hell did they _lose_ him?” Sid blurted, panic rising in his chest. Malkin barely spoke a word of English, let alone Finish. That was to say they’d even lost him in Finland, for all anyone seemed to know he could’ve been off wandering the wilds of the Russian tundra alone, and freezing to death.

“He never showed up at baggage claim, he’s missing.”

Those two words triggered a spasm in his chest, his mind unhelpfully supplying mental images of Russian mobsters, Finish serial killers, and hungry polar bears. Just like that the festivities of the day were cancelled, his birthday long forgotten.

For three days the kids hovered around the phones, constantly vigilant. Nathalie seemed to be talking to every U.S. Embassy that seemed even remotely accessible to a gangly Russian hockey player on the lamb. Mario was there one hour and gone the next, his cell phone and pager going off on a minute to minute interval.

Sidney just tapped out texts, about the weather, about Pittsburgh, about anything in between. Wherever Malkin was he was scared and lonely, and that was the last thing he wanted.

Dinner was a quiet affair, steaks and mashed potatoes that Sidney and Lauren had thrown together after Mario had disappeared for the fourth time that day. They were gathered around the table making idle small talk about the upcoming school term when the man reappeared in the kitchen archway, an exhausted and skittish looking hockey fugitive on his arm.

Sid was out of his chair before he even realized what he was doing, reaching instinctively toward Malkin and pulling him in for a bone crushing hug. To his surprise, Malkin returned it with equal ferocity.

“Sidney Crosby,” The words were weighted by a thick accent, but also clearly practiced.

“Evgeni.” Sid replied gently, having done a little practicing of his own.

The other’s eyes lit up, bright and content beneath the bags and shadows. “Happy Birthday.” He enthused, shoving a thinly wrapped parcel into his hands.

The set of hand carved [Russian dolls](http://www.marieclairemaison.com/data/photo/mw660_c18/7dab392c11nrusse.jpg), painted in the likeness of a penguin still sat in a neat line across his dresser, right next to the [picture ](http://1.cdn.nhle.com/penguins/images/upload/gallery/2011/09/_JJS1679rs164031233_slide.jpg)of him and Geno laughing during an on ice interview.

Eight years later and Sid couldn’t help but stack them all into each other and then reopen them and line them up in the exact same order, each night before bed. A ritual of sorts for whenever Geno went back to Russia for the summer, a way to reassure himself that whenever Geno whispered through the phone, his voice thick with sleep and a slowly strengthening accent, that he was coming home, he meant it.

**\-----**

Mario left practice early, and Sid didn’t think twice about it.

He even stayed for a little extra ice time, playing keep-away with Geno. When he did finally come off the ice, the locker room was empty, save for the hard working equipment managers.

Which is why he could pick out her voice so clearly, shrieking in frantic French. He’d heard Nathalie raise her voice before, but he’d never heard her dissolve into shrill bursts of her native tongue like that.

Terrified that something had gone terribly wrong, Sidney had burst through the trainer’s room door in nothing but his pads and skates.

The silence was automatic and deafening.

Nathalie released the grip she’d had on Mario’s jersey and turned away, tear streaked and sniffling. Snatching up her purse she brushed past Sidney with a watery smile and disappeared on the hall, the click of her heels echoing off the walls.

Mario stared after her, his expression solemn and guilty, like a teenager caught in a lie.

Sidney just stood there, rooted to the spot. It took a moment before he let the sight sink in, all the charts and monitors lined up in an eerily familiar fashion.

His stomach sank, like the world had been ripped from under him and he was free falling into oblivion. From one moment to the next he was on the floor, lungs seizing.

This couldn’t be happening, this couldn’t fucking happen.

“Sidney, _Sidney_.” Mario was there, hands heavy and warm on his shoulders as they trembled uncontrollably. “It’s not what you think, it’s not cancer.”

Those words sank in bit by bit, as Sid gradually regained his ability to breathe, blinking dumbly at the man crouched in front of him.

“It’s...not?”

“No.” Mario answered firmly, a small smile on his lips.

It wasn’t cancer, but a heart murmur. He’d been playing with a heart murmur.

“You, you…” Sid reared up, hauling Mario with him and shoving the man back down into a chair, hazel eyes blown wide with rage. He suddenly understood Nathalie’s own anger, felt it humming in his veins.

The tears came, dripping off his nose and landing on the older man’s cheek as he gazed up in shock, mouth slightly agape.

Sid dug his fingers in till he knew they’d bruise, ten individual marks, five on each bicep.

“You’re so stupid, how could you be that stupid?”

Mario swallowed, his jaw working to find words that weren’t there. The fight went out of Sidney as quickly as it had come, he collapsed into his mentor with a shuddering gasp, burying his face in the crook of his neck while Mario whispered quiet apologies.

“Retire.”

“I will.”

And every summer since they rehung that sixty-six jersey, Sid had taken the time to enroll in a CPR course. His bookshelves cluttered with all the information he could amass, should there ever be a time he needed to put it to use.

**\-----**

He found out the way most people did.

His phone pinged, an alert from the Bleacher Report on Kris.

Kris and a stroke.

Except that couldn’t be right. Kris was only twenty-six. You didn’t have strokes at twenty-six.

Before he could stop himself he was punching in the familiar number, heart thudding louder with each ring that passed unanswered.

Finally there was that tell tale click, Sid huffed out a sigh.

“Sidney?” The brunette’s blood ran cold, the voice on the other end far too frail and far too soft to be Kris.

“Catherine,” He answered, his breath hitching. “Oh god, Catherine.”

Then she was crying, hiccuping sobs with broken sentences in between about how she’d found Kris that morning, sprawled on the kitchen floor alert, but unable to speak or move.

“I’m coming, I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” Sid promised, throwing a fifty down on the diner table and rushing out into the snow.

His hands shook the whole way to the hospital, because there wasn’t a single thing he could do, not a a single thing, except be there.

He made the drive in ten minutes, had his arms around Catherine in eleven. Her number forever logged in his speed dial.

**\-----**

Get up, _get up_.

But Duper didn’t get up fast enough.

Sid watched from the bench as Kris lined up the shot and let it fly, his knuckles going white as he leapt to his feet.

“Hey, **_HEY!_** ”

Duper’s shouts carried across the ice, Geno quick to his side, easing him down to the ice while he curled inward and rolled onto his back, shaking off his gloves and frantically flexing his fingers.

This couldn’t be happening, they’d _just_ gotten him back.

Sid took a step forward onto the ice, pacing like a caged animal along the boards, his gaze glued to the Dallas crease. He watched, feeling gutted and raw as they wheeled out the stretcher, following the trainers down ice.

They whispered rapidly about numbness and spinal injuries, each snippet driving through Sid like an acid dipped shard of glass.

The thumbs-up Duper offered the crowd doing little to ease his worry.

Which is how he found himself hunched over the edge of a hospital bed, his head pillowed on his arms as a heart monitor kept up it’s steady rhythm. His back stiff from a night spent in the confines of a stiff wooden chair.

“Hey, kid.” Duper muttered, poking at his cheek until Sid lifted his head and blinked blearily at him. “You stay here all night?” He asked, eyes soft with that soft, paternal glow he’d started radiate ever since Kody was born.

“Wanted to see you.” Sid yawned, scrubbing at his face and straightening up in his chair.

“Well, so long as you’re gonna loiter, why don’t you at least go grab us some breakfast.”

If Duper suspected that Sid was spoiling him, getting his his favorite beaver tail from the bakery down the street from the hospital, he didn’t say so. He did however cock an eyebrow the next time they played the Stars and Sid put Goligoski down on the ice so hard, his tailbone would remember the experience vividly for weeks to come.

“He’s not coming near you.” Sid hissed vehemently, glaring daggers at their ex-teammate from the bench. No one could persuade him to allow otherwise.

**\-----**

Cancer.

It is a word he’d come to well and truly fear.

It had taken his grandmother, threatened to take Mario...and now Olli.

Sid sat hunched in his stall, fingers laced together, eyes squeezed shut. Around him the silence of the room slowly cracked as hugs were exchanged, as well as whole hearted encouragements.

When the back slaps and the bear hugs subsided, he dared to look up from his steepled hands. For a moment he stared, at the blue of Olli’s eyes and the downy soft tufts of blonde hair peeking out from beneath his cap. His heart stuttered, fear seeping into his veins like ice.

Olli was barely more than a child, babyfaced and so genuinely young.

To think of him wasting away, torn down and broken by a disease that had already robbed so many of their loved ones...it was terrifying.

“Sidney...I’m afraid.” Olli whispered, taking a hesitant step forward.

Before he could take another, Sid was up and had the young Finn pulled tight to his chest, his heart pounding. He locked his arms around him and squeezed for all that he was worth.

“You’re going to kick this things ass, you hear me? You’ll be back on the ice in a week or two like it never even happened.”

It was a risky promise to make, one with statistics that stood tall against it. But for as young as Olli was, he was also strong, and impressively driven.

You didn’t break into the NHL at nineteen if you weren’t.

Olli nodded against the crook of his neck, pulling away with a watery smile.

Two weeks later he scored a hat trick against the Rangers in his first game back.

Even sixteen years later, years after he and Geno had retired and Beau had taken the C, Sid still waltzed into Consol every September. Like clock work he’d find Olli in the team lounge, shooting the shit with Nisky or making sandwiches with Beau. Together they’d make their way down to the trainers.

No matter how much time passed, it was never any less nerve wracking to sit outside and wait. Some years it only took a few minutes, other years it took hours.

Back in 2020 a little blip had shown up in the scans because of an electrical malfunction and had nearly scared them all to death. But ever since, it’d been ten years of complete and blissful normality.

The door creaked open and Sidney stood, wiping his sweat dampened palms on the front of slacks as he got to his feet.

Olli came out beaming, brandishing a clean bill of health.

It never failed that Sidney breathed a little easier after that, pulling Olli into a hug and relishing the way he squeezed back just as good as he got. To feel him, solid and warm in his embrace, it was all he could ever ask for. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The whole thing with Olli made me insanely emotional, thus this happened. Please excuse any glaring medical flubs.


End file.
